Greater New Orleans

Pictured is a scene from a recent production at Cutting Edge Theater in Slidell. The small professional theater that operates as a beauty salon by day is relocating. The Cutting Edge Center for the Arts (CECA) will be a full-service arts center for eastern St. Tammany that will continue to offer theater and salon services, but is expanding to include an art gallery, art lessons by co-owner Richard Fuentes, dance lessons, guitar lessons, and a variety of arts-related offerings. (photo by Cutting Edge Theater).

Slidell's intimate, professional theater, Cutting Edge, has announced its plans to move to a new location, including expansion into a larger space expected to provide more arts offerings to eastern St. Tammany. Co-owner Brian Fontenot described the new space, to be renamed Cutting Edge Center for the Arts (CECA), as an all-encompassing center for the arts.

"There's nothing offered in the area that's like this, that has everything under one roof," Fontenot said.

The new venue, which is scheduled to open Aug. 29, will house Cutting Edge Theater along with the Richard Fuentes Art Studio. Fuentes will teach both beginning and advanced painting and drawing classes for children and adults starting Sept. 2.

Also opening Aug. 29 is "Rough Edges," the art gallery at the CECA. According to Fontenot, the gallery will give local artists an opportunity to exhibit and sell their work. Artwork on display at the gallery is expected to change periodically and coincide with opening nights of each new theatrical production.

Fontenot said additional arts-related offerings upcoming at the theater this fall include guitar lessons, dance lessons, creative writing classes, and possibly courses conducted by a makeup artist who works for notable fashion designer Tom Ford.

Attractions Salon – a beauty salon Fontenot operates from the theater space by day – will continue on at the new location. He said a decision was made to place CECA at 767 Robert Blvd., a few buildings down from the current Cutting Edge site at 747 Robert Blvd., so that current salon and theater patrons will be able to find it easily.

The building – which has been under reconstruction for a number of weeks now – is a two-story venue that previously housed Carter's Appliances and Floor Coverings. The interior is being remodeled for the new venue and a purple canopy recently added to the building's façade will bear signs for Cutting Edge, Attractions Salon and the new CECA.

Fontenot said seating capacity will remain at 120, but that the seats will be improved, consisting of comfortable, all-raised, graduated seating designed to provide clear views of the stage from all points. He also said unlike the current theater space, which utilizes risers and moving platforms to create the stage areas, the CECA theater will feature a permanent stage. The center will feature a two-story lobby and a "bird's-eye view" catwalk balcony.

The inaugural show to be staged in the new space will be the rock opera "Jesus Christ Superstar," by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, to be performed Aug. 29 through Sept. 19. "Crimes of the Heart," the last production to take place in the old location, will run Aug. 8 through 23.